Stuart Murray

I am an Assistant Professor and NIMH-funded researcher in the Department of Psychiatry and Weill Institute for Neurosciences at the University of California, San Francisco. My work focuses centrally on the treatment of adolescent eating disorders. I have been actively involved in the clinical treatment of EDs for over 8 years, and in my role at UCSF I serve as (i) the Director of the Intensive Family Therapy program; an innovative immersive treatment approach for adolescent anorexia nervosa, (ii) as an attending clinical psychology supervisor in the APA-accredited UCSF Clinical Psychology Training Program, (iii) as senior lecturer in the UCSF Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Residency program, and (iv) a supervisor in the UCSF Eating Disorder Research Program. In addition, I also serve as Director of the National Association for Males with Eating Disorders, as Chair for the Academy of Eating Disorders Special Interest Group on male eating disorders, and serve on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Adolescent Health, Behaviour Research and Therapy, Body Image, Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment & Prevention, and the Journal of Eating Disorders.

Alongside this, I have demonstrated a longstanding commitment to ED research, garnering a productive track record that includes over 110 peer-reviewed manuscripts (more than 75 first-, second-, or senior authored) and 3 edited books (one first authored). In particular, my program of research has focused on (i) the elucidation of novel pathways for ED symptomatology, and (ii) the development of novel treatment approaches, although I recognize that developing novel treatments without explicating the mechanistic processes underpinning illness pathways (i.e., precise treatment targets) is inherently limited. It is with this in mind that my more recent research focus has been oriented toward the identification of mechanistic processes that underpin the psychopathology of anorexia nervosa. To this end, I was recently awarded a NIMH K23 Award to investigate the mechanisms underpinning the acquisition, and extinction, of conditioned fear in adolescents with anorexia nervosa.